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CNCFeedsandSpeedsCookbook PDF
CNCFeedsandSpeedsCookbook PDF
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Getting the best possible results from your CNC machine covers a lot of
ground. To begin with, there are several different goals we might be trying to
optimize for:
- Best Material Removal Rates
- Maximizing Tool Life
- Good surface finish
You'll need to decide what your priorities are among these three, as different
techniques emphasize each goal and you can't necessarily get great surface
finish, maximum material removal rates, and the best tool life all at once.
In this series of articles, we'll go through some CNC Cookbook recipes that
help you optimize for your goals, whatever they may be.
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Table of Contents
Here are the articles available for maximizing your CNC machining
productivity.
signifies the most popular articles in each section if you want to skip
ahead!
Intermediate
Turning Down the Heat in a Cut: Reducing heat prolongs tool life.
Dry Machining: Yes, you can machine without flood coolant. Often, it's even
better.
Tool Deflection Control: Critical to Your Success: Are you in control of tool
deflection, or is it something that just happens?
Climb Milling vs Conventional Milling: There are times when Conventional is
better!
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Advanced
High Speed Machining: Tool Engagement Angle, Trochoidal Milling, Peeling,
and all that Jazz.
Dealing With Chatter When Milling: Fixing Chatter via Rigidity or Tuning
Speeds and Feeds.
Micro-Machining: How to avoid breaking those tiny little cutters.
Advantages and Pitfalls of Rigid Tapping
Long Reach Tools, Thin Walls, and Other Rigidity Challenges
Milling Tough Materials
Using a Cutting Knowledge Base to Beat Manufacturer's Recommended
Feeds and Speeds
Quick Guides
10 Tips for CNC Router Aluminum Cutting Success: Take these shortcuts and
skip a lot of pain.
Tips for Getting the Best CNC Milling Surface Finish: And the truth about
mirror finishes.
Feeds and Speeds for Fly Cutters and Manual Mills: Tips and tricks for using
G-Wizard with Manual Mills
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Videos
A Quick Video Course in Feeds and Speeds
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I'm a Beginner, How About if I Just Run the Machine Super Slow?
It's a common mis-conception that you can "baby" the cut in order to be ultra
conservative. Just run the spindle speed way slow and the feedrate way slow
and you won't break anything, right? Well, not exactly. Metal is a very
unforgiving material. Plastics, wood, and other softer materials can also have
problems from improper feeds and speeds, but metal is the most sensitive.
Here's some examples of what can happen if you run too slowly:
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- If you reduce your spindle speed too much relative to the feedrate, you're
forcing the flutes of your cutter to take of too much material. The endmill is
being pushed too fast into the cut and the chips get too big. You can easily
break a cutter this way.
- If you reduce your feedrate too much relative to spindle speed, you will soon
cause your cutter flutes to start "rubbing" or "burnishing" the workpiece
instead of shearing or cutting chips. Many machinists will tell you the fastest
way to dull a cutter is just to run it with the spindle reversed and make a pass,
but having too slow a feedrate creates a similar effect. We'll talk more about
how this happens in the Feeds and Speeds article, but suffice it to say that
running too slow is just as hard on your cutters as running them too fast, if not
harder.
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This chart is relative, meaning you can't assume anything about the
proportions or scale. Just look at the positions of the regions relative to one
another, and relative to the idea of faster and slower spindle speeds and
feedrates.
Let's consider the different labeled zones, left to right, top to bottom:
Feeding too Much Chipload: As we've discussed, when you feed too fast for
a given spindle rpm, you're likely to break the tool. The more you exceed the
appropriate speed, the more likely. At some point, you'll always break the tool.
Consider the absurd case where spindle rpm is zero and you rapid the tool
into the work. Pop! Just broke another tool.
MRR: Running the spindle as fast as we can without burning the tool, and
feeding as fast as we can without breaking the tool is the sweet spot for
maximum material removal rates. If you're manufacturing, this is where you
make money by getting further up and to the right than the competition.
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Too Fast: Too much spindle speed will generate excess heat which softens
the tool and dulls it faster. There are exceptions and mitigating circumstances
we'll talk about in more advanced installments.
Best Tool Life: Slowing down the spindle a bit and feeding at slightly less
than appropriate for maximum MRR gives the best tool life. We'll talk more
below about Taylor's equations for tool life, but suffice it to say that reducing
the spindle rpm is more important than reducing the feedrate, but both will
help.
Surface Finish: Reducing your feedrates while keeping the spindle speed up
lightens the chipload and leads to a nicer surface finish. There are limits, the
biggest of which is that you'll eventually lighten the feedrate too much, your
tools will start to rub, and tool life will go way down due to the excess heat
generated by the rubbing.
Older Machines: So your spindle speed has come way down, and in addition,
so has your feedrate. You're probably on an older machine where you can't
run the kind of speeds you need to take advantage of carbide tooling. You
may need to switch to HSS. It comes as a surprise to many that there are
areas of the feeds and speeds envelope where HSS can outperform carbide,
but it's true, depending on your machine's capabilities and the material you're
cutting. Check the article "Is Carbide Always Faster than HSS" for more
information.
Feeding Too Slow: As discussed, feeding too slow leads to rubbing instead
of cutting, which can radically shorten your tool life and is to be avoided.
Now that you know how the sweet spots break down, you'll have a better idea
how to steer your feeds and speeds to the desired results.
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Before we get into calculating the best feeds and speeds for your goals, there
are a few more concepts we need to understand.
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But there is a second issue that comes from too much chipload--the chips get
bigger and eventually can't get out of the cutter's way. Beginning machinists
probably break more tools because they don't get the chips out of the way fast
enough than because the force of the feed is breaking the tool. If the cutter is
down in a deep slot, the chips have a particularly hard time getting out of the
way. We use air blasts, mists, and flood coolant to try to clear the chips out of
the way, but if they're way down a hole or slot, it makes it that much harder,
and we have to reduce speed.
Making matters worse, chips always take more room once they're chips than
the equivalent weight of material takes as a solid. The only place they have to
go is gaps between the flutes of the cutter. Of course, the more flutes we
have, the less space there is in the gaps. Can you see the point of diminishing
returns coming? In fact, some materials have a tendency to throw off such big
chips that we prefer 2 or 3 flute cutters instead of 4 flutes. Aluminum is a good
example.
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Rubbing: When You're Feeding too Slowly (aka I'm a Beginner, How About
if I Just Run the Machine Super Slow?)
I've mentioned several times now that feeding too slowly causes "rubbing".
How does that work?
Consider a magnified view of your cutting edge versus the material:
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Two chiploads: Top one has chip thickness > tool edge radius. Bottom one
has chip thickness < tool edge radius and will rub...
In the diagram, the cutter edge radius centerline travels along the yellow lines.
If the radius is too large relative to the depth of cut (bottom), all the force goes
to pushing the chip under the edge. This is the "rubbing" effect you'll hear
talked about when feedrate and hence chipload are too low.
Tool manufacturers will tell you that too little feed is just as bad for tool life as
too much feed (or too much spindle rpm). But how little is too little? That part
is seemingly hard to find out. I went fishing around with Google to try to find
what speeds and feeds result in a "burnishing" effect with tools. Here is what I
found:
- Article on hard milling: 0.0008" per tooth is definitely burnishing because it is
"less than the edge hone typically applied to the insert."
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- De-Classified 1961 Batelle Institute report on aerospace machining of superalloys says an IPR less than 0.0035 will result in burnishing and likely work
hardening of these alloys. Interesting how well this number agrees with the
one above for a 4 flute cutter. 8 tenths times four would be 32 tenths.
- Kennametal says the "highest possible feed per tooth will usually provide
longer tool life. However, excessive feeds may overload the tool and cause
the cutting edges to chip or break." So feed as fast as you can until you start
to chip or break edges. They reiterate this under work hardening. One
wonders whether rubbing leading to work hardening isn't the principal risk of
cutting with too-low chiploads with respect to tool life in susceptible materials.
- Another reference, like the first, to keeping chiploads higher than tool edge
radius. In this case, IPT should be greater than 0.001". This is once again an
article on hard machining where work hardening may be a factor.
- Minimum chip thickness is 5-20% of the cutting edge radius. Below that
level, chips will not form and the cutter will "plow" across the workpiece
causing plastic deformation and considerable heat.
- Ingersoll says that as a general rule carbide chiploads should not be less
than 0.004" or you run the risk of rubbing which reduces tool life and causes
chatter.
I take away two things:
1. If you cut too little, you run the risk of work hardening if your material is
susceptible to it. That will wreck your tool life if you are over-stimulating work
hardening. Imagine tossing a handful of hardened chips into the path of our
cutter--that can't be good!
2. Aside from work hardening, if you're cutting much less than the cutting edge
radius, you're rubbing and not making clean chips. That will heat the tool and
material and drastically reduce tool life.
Figuring out the work hardening part is easy. If your material is susceptible,
keep the chipload up at manufacturer's recommendations and don't fool
around. Figuring out the whole cutting radius issue is harder. Most of the time
we don't know what the cutting radius is. I'm not talking about tip radius on a
lathe tool, for example. I'm talking about the actual radius of the sharp edge.
In other words, the smaller the radius, the sharper the tool. A lot of carbide
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inserts are pretty blunt. A chipload of less than 0.001" may very well be too
little. Modern tools for aluminum are often much sharper, and can take less
chipload. In general, indexable tools are usually less sharp than endmills, so
they need higher chiploads.
It's ironic that just when you think you are taking it easy on a cutter with a very
light cut, you may be doing the most damage of all due to rubbing.
Why chance it though? Use a calculator like G-Wizard to figure out how to
deliver the manufacturer's recommended chipload by increasing the
feedrates. Not only will the job go faster but your tooling will last longer.
Radial Chip Thinning (aka I'm an Expert and I ran the Machine too slowly
without even knowing it)
Would you believe that especially for light cuts, the basic math combined with
SFM and chipload tables often gives results that are wrong and radically
increase the wear on your tools?
The reason is that there is more going on here than meets the eye. For
example, if I poke around various endmill manufacturer's literature in search of
speeds and feeds for steel, I can get to a page like this one from Niagara
cutter. First thing to note is that the recommended chiploads and SFM vary
depending on the exact operation being performed, and in particular, the
depths of cuts. If you're just using the basic shop math around SFM and
chipload, no such compensation is available. I have built compensation like
this into my G-Wizard Machinist's Calculator, but trust me, it isn't so easy just
to do it by hand. You'll be constantly referring to pages and tables, or to Excel
spreadsheets.
Let's try an example based on doing some peripheral (edge) milling to profile
a part made out of mild steel using a 1/2" uncoated HSS 4 flute endmill. We
plan to take fairly shallow finishing quality cuts of 5% of the cutter diameter.
Further, let's do a pretty deep cut axially, a full cutter diameter of 1/2". So if I
am profiling a 1" high part, I can make a full pass by going around twice and
cutting 1/2" each time.
What feeds and speeds should we use?
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The Niagara page says for cuts less than 1/16 of a diameter (5% is 1/20), we
want 210 SFM and a chipload of 0.0035. If I plug all that into G-Wizard, but
ignore the chip thinning, I get the following results:
Radial Depth Ratio of 5% = 0.015" depth of cut
210 SFM and 0.0035 chipload gives us 22.46 IPM feedrate and a 1600 rpm
spindle speed.
Is that the right speeds and feeds?
Yes and no. It's certainly what the majority of folks would use. In fact, they
might even be less aggressive than that if they're trying to be conservative.
Let's see what G-Wizard would suggest by default and why:
For the same depth of cut and cutter, G-Wizard wants a little slower SFM of
160, and a little less aggressive chipload at 0.003.
The spindle speed works out to be 1200 rpm due to the lower SFM, but the
feedrate is now 84.69 IPM--nearly 4x the original values.
How can we go so fast?!??
Unfortunately, avoiding the rubbing problem gets harder, even for experts,
because of a phenomenon known as "Radial Chip Thinning." With chip
thinning, you can be making a cut and following all the recommended
chiploads, and still be rubbing. The cut above, 1600 rpm at 22.46 IPM will
almost certainly wind up rubbing. The reason is that due to the geometry,
when your radial engagement, the cut width looking down the axis of the tool,
is less than half the diameter, the chips that come off are actually thinner than
the basic formulas everyone learns in machinist's school predict.
A picture is worth a thousand words when understanding why:
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The blue chip is a shallower cut. Note how thin it is at its widest compared to
the red chip from a deeper cut...
The blue chip represents a very shallow cut, and the red chip a deeper cut.
Note how thin the blue chip is at its widest compared to the red chip from a
deeper cut. You can see that the chip gets thicker all the way up to the point
where we've buried the cutter to 1/2 its diameter. That's the thickest point.
Chip thinning simply answers the question, "How much faster do we have to
go so the maximum width of the blue chip is the recommended
chipload?"Because we're just trying to get back to the recommended chipload,
chip thinning isn't about going faster in the sense of higher MRR's. You will
see your machine going faster, sometimes a LOT faster, but chip thinning is
about avoiding rubbing that will dramatically shorten your tool life.
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Many manufacturers publish tables that suggest how much faster to feed
based on the % of cutter diameter you are cutting. A good machinist's
calculator, like G-Wizard, will factor in chip thinning automatically. Unless you
never cut less than 1/2 the diameter of your tool, you need to make sure
you're adjusting your cuts for chip thinning or you're probably wearing out
tools prematurely as well as not taking full advantage of the material removal
rates the tool is capable of.
Surface Speed: How Fast the Tool Slides Against the Workpiece While
Cutting
When specifying the operation of a tool, surface speed goes hand in hand
with chipload. Just as chipload is a better way to talk about feedrate because
it is independent of so many factors, surface speed is a better way to talk
about spindle rpm. Imagine that instead of a rotating cylinder with cutting
edges, your tool was a flat piece of metal slid against the workpiece. The
recommended speed to slide when cutting is the surface speed.
Surface speed is measured in linear units per minute: feet per minute (SFM)
for Imperial, and meters per minute in Metric.
You can't really cheat on Surface Speed. It is what it is and exceeding the
manufacturer's recommendations is sure to reduce tool life fairly drastically
except for some very special HSM cases you should only worry about when
you've mastered the beginner and intermediate speeds and feeds concepts.
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Some machinists feel like they can judge feeds and speeds by sound and
experience, with maybe a few rules of thumb thrown in. In the manual
machining days, this was probably true, particularly when turning on a lathe.
With your hand on the machine's handwheels, a machinist gets quite a bit of
feedback about what's going on with the cut. If you have any doubt, try
ramping into the cut by turning either X or Y at the same time as Z. The
endmill cuts much easier than trying to plunge with your machine's quill. You
really can feel the difference, even if it is hard to coordinate the motions as
precisely as a CNC can.
Things like cutter engagement angle are largely irrelevant--you'd have to turn
two handwheels at once in exactly the right way to mill around a corner.
Feedrates were generally a lot slower, so radial chip thinning would seldom be
a problem, at least not for longer than it takes to complete a light finish pass.
Roughing would be contacted with the biggest hogging cuts that could be
made--no dainty swirly HSM toolpaths were available. If you ran a Bridgeport
manual mill by hand, never able to exceed 6000 rpm or so, and probably
using HSS tooling, it's pretty easy to pick up the feeds and speeds, especially
if an old-time master is looking over your shoulder and letting you know when
you're screwing up.
Those days are gone, unfortunately. Today we have CNC, much higher
speeds, the ability to do things manual machinists can only dream of, and a
far more competitive business environment for manufacturers. You need to be
able to maximize your machine's performance, or at least take advantage of
as much as you can without damaging tools. CNC machines are dumb--they
have no ability to sense much about what's going on in the cut. They're going
to do just exactly whatever you program them to do, and the better ones will
do it so fast it'll be all you can do to press the E-Stop before anything too
terrible can happen. Tools can snap or rub and where out very suddenly.
Forget about seat of the pants or rules of thumb. You can ask other
machinists who have experience, and many times they'll be helpful. But try to
ask your question generally to get the maximum benefit of their experience.
For example, they can tell you pretty quickly what range of surface speed and
chipload they like to use and perhaps their preferred tooling. That's helpful,
but those are just parameters and you'll still need to perform some
calculations. If you ask for the answer, e.g. what spindle speed and feedrate
for this exact cut, you're doing them a disservice (that's some trouble for them
to sit down and figure out) and you're only getting value for one cut.
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Experience counts, but experience knows it's important to get smart about
what you're doing and not reinvent the wheel. Experience needs to move
higher up the food chain than just feeds and speeds where purely mechanical
calculations can produce accurate results quickly. Why waste your time on
something like that when you can't do any better job?
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warn you, you will outgrow Excel if you keep adding bells and whistles like I
did. More on that below.
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Sophisticated feeds and speeds software lets you master a lot more variables
than you could manage by hand. You can see a number of them in the GWizard screen shot above, but there are even more built into the internals of
the program. These variables all interact in various ways. Most are
quantitative numbers and hard math, but G-Wizard even includes qualitative
rules and variables. Note the line right above the Gas Pedal labeled "Tips". It
says, "Use Conventional Milling," and, "Coatings: TiN, TiAlN". That's useful
information to have handy. If you read many articles on machining, you'll know
there are tons of these out there. I used to try to memorize them, but then I
thought, "Why bother if I can have the software tell me the right rules at the
right time?"
Every time you learn to master some additional variables, you can produce
better results. G-Wizard is all about helping to master as many as possible.
To give an idea of how crazy it gets, G-Wizard considers 49 different variables
as it is making a feed and speed calculation. Compare that to the half dozen
considered by the Wikipedia formulas and you can start to understand the
complexity behind modern feeds and speeds calculators. In addition to its 49
variables, it consults a total of 14 distinct databases. The total size of all that
data makes G-Wizard the Calculator larger than G-Wizard the G-Code
editor as I write this, even though the G-Code Editor is a far more complex
piece of software. It's the sheer volume of the databases that makes the
Calculator larger. And, it's being able to consider all that data together with all
those variables and do the math in the blink of an eye that produces the
results.
Let's go back to the Manufacturer's data one more time. Are we saying you
should ignore it? No, absolutely not. On the other hand, G-Wizard and other
calculators obviously can't incorporate every manufacturers data. Most of the
time they don't even tell you which data was used to develop their database. If
you use a particular line of tooling as most shops do, you'll want your
calculator to be able to import and use the manufacturer's data. Ideally it will
import and use it along with all the other rules and formulas built in. That last
point is important: you need to apply all that math even if you have the
manufacturer's data.
Why?
Because manufacturer's data has to be simplified in the interests of
presentation. If the manufacturer gave you a fancy calculator like G-Wizard,
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they could afford to consider a ton of proprietary variables. But they don't.
Instead, they give you tables. Tables limit the number of variables that can be
considered. A two dimensional table considers just 2 variables, perhaps
material and tool diameter, for example, to look up surface speed and
chipload. If you're lucky, they give you a couple of extra tables and maybe
some rules of thumb:
- "These numbers are good to 1/2 diameter cut depth."
- "Reduce SFM 50% for full slotting or when cutting more than 2 x diameter
deep."
You've surely seen such rules. Once again, a calculator can consider far more
complex models. It can interpolate smoothly from 0 to the 2x diameter depth,
adjusting all along the way. It can consider any cut width when figuring radial
chip thinning instead of just the few in the manufacturer's tables. This is
valuable and leads to more performance no matter what you're trying to
optimize for. The Manufacturer's data augments the 49 variables and 14
databases inside G-Wizard, it doesn't replace them.
So, enter your manufacturer's data into your calculator so it can add value to
that data. G-Wizard lets you import the data as spreadsheet (CSV) files, to
make it easy. It also includes a large catalog of downloadable manufacturer's
data so you may not have to do any data entry at all. Lastly, if your calculator
has tool table (tool crib) support and the ability to import manufacturer's data,
they make ideal tools for comparing the performance of different tooling.
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You can tell how sophisticated a speeds and feeds calculator is by the
information it takes in and the information it gives out. Take a look, for
example, at the G-Wizard's Feeds and Speeds documentation page--there's a
lot going on there. Now compare that information to what your CAM program
is doing. Many of them have a lot of limitations. Here are just a few examples:
- A fixed chipload by tool without regard to material. This may be modified by
some "chipload factor" by material, but that isn't how the manufacturer
presents the data, so why should you stand on your head to think about it the
way the crazy CAM program wants?
- No chip thinning calculations.
- Not much tooling-specific calculations.
- No qualitative rules, like when to use conventional vs climb milling (there are
important distinctions there!).
- etc.
The short answer is using your CAM program is better than nothing, but not
so great. For that reason, we're working on integrating G-Wizard with various
CAM programs to make it easier for you. Meanwhile, it's easy enough to use
G-Wizard and enter the values it produces into the CAM program. You'll be
happy you did so as our users report it does a better job than even the market
leading CAM programs.
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Toolroom vs
Manufacturing Feeds and
Speeds
CNC Milling Feeds and Speeds Cookbook
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speed and chipload scaling in conjunction with the Tool Crib. The scaling lets
you apply a percentage multiplier to the two values. For example, you could
try "0.95" or "0.9" to reduce the values 5-10%.
If you didn't manage to break a tool with the Manufacturer's Numbers, crank
'em up further using the same tools. Try 1.1 or 1.05 to add 5 or 10%. Given
the choice, focus on tweaking chipload first. It takes much more time to find
out if you have a little too much surface speed because it increases the wear
which may not immediately break the tool. You could be already past it after
the 5% increase but keep increasing to 20-25% before the tool finally gives
out.
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Chip Clearing
Chip clearing is by far the most important function. I cringe every time I see a
cut being made while the chips pile up. Sure, it's easier to photograph the
action, but those piling chips are very hard on your cutter's life and can even
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lead to breakage. You're much more likely to experience built-up edge (BUE)
where chips weld onto the cutter if the cutter must recut the same chips over
and over and can't get rid of them. If there is insufficient chip clearing in your
machining operation, you may use up all the chip clearance your cutter has
available, which can lead quickly to cutter breakage, if the cutter is buried
under a mound of chips.
If your machine has no flood coolant, rig up an air blast or mist to get the chips
out of there. Get paranoid about having too many chips around. Think about it
this way: most tooling manufacturers recommend you turn off the flood
coolant when surface speed goes above a certain point and you will increase
the life of your tooling. If it was all about heat, that shouldn't be the case as
more surface speed means more heat.
Lubrication
Lubrication helps the tool to cut more easily and therefore it cuts while
generating less heat. As the face of the tool slides across the workpiece, it
rubs while cutting. As the chip curls up, it also rubs on the tool, generating
more heat. All that rubbing will produce less heat with a little lube, just like any
sliding fit would. That's an important role for lubrication, but it's not the most
important part of the cooling issue (generate less heat by reducing friction and
we don't have as much to cool). A much bigger role for lubrication is reducing
the likelihood of Built Up Edge (BUE). This is a big deal as anyone who has
seen a big wad of aluminum get welded to their cutter will attest to. Things
stop working pretty quickly when that happens!
Fortunately, BUE is material-specific, and mostly applies to Aluminum and
Steel that lacks much carbon or other alloying substances. Titanium is another
material that has a reputation for being sticky. Use of really sharp cutters with
very high rake angles (positive rake is your friend!) can help reduce adhesion
tremendously, but it's not enough. Many coatings used on tools can also
provide lubrication, although they're fragile and as they wear off and shouldn't
be counted on as the primary answer to BUE. In the end, a little bit of mist can
deal with this problem as well as flood coolant, so it isn't the end of the world.
Just don't forget to do something about lubrication before that wad of
aluminum welds itself in all the wrong places. I've heard a number of
professional machinsts flat out declare you can't machine aluminum without
some form of lubrication (mist or tool coating, and preferably the mist). Even a
little spritz of WD-40 makes a big difference with aluminum.
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Coolant
Specific Heat of
Coolant
Steel A
(tempered)
Steel B
(annealed)
Air
0.25
0.489
3.9
4.7
0.556
0.872
14.8
8.4
0.923
13
Water
1.00
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First thing to notice about the table, is that the efficiency of the various
coolants at removing heat directly corresponds to the specific heat of the
coolant. Second thing to notice is that air is pretty lousy, about 1/4 as good as
water. That's actually not as bad as predicted, since water carries heat 25x
more effectively than air. The reason for the difference is its hard for the
coolant to make efficient contact everywhere it needs to and carry away
enough heat. Also, if you're using the right cutting parameters (e.g. feeds and
speeds), most of the heat should be carried away in the chips, not the coolant.
It's interesting to note that the oil-based coolants are about half as effective as
water-based in terms of their ability to cool the tool and workpiece. Between
that and the health considerations, its no wonder a lot of shops have gone to
water-soluble coolants--they just cool better. On the flip side, the oil lubricates
better (natch), and there are still some applications where machinists may
prefer oil (usually turning) to the water soluble coolants.
One last think about flood coolants--above a certain critical surface speed,
they all start to work about the same, and the faster you go the less cooling
effect they have. One reason for this is that when things are going really fast,
there isn't time for a big gout of coolant to make it's way into all the nooks and
crannies. Cooling becomes less and less consistent, and this also contributes
to the shock cooling effects that make coolant hard on carbide life above
certain speeds.
Material Considerations
There are two material-specific considerations for coolant. The first is the
tendency to BUE, where the material sticks to the cutter and lubrication is
important. The second is the ability of the material to absorb and transfer heat.
Some materials do not transfer heat very well--titanium is a good example.
Those materials are often more dependent on the coolant for cooling in order
to offset the inability of the material to carry heat. That inability makes it harder
for the chips to carry away heat and harder for the workpiece to stay cool
without changing size due to excess heat. Titanium further compounds the
problem by producing relatively small chips.
If the material you're cutting transfers heat poorly relative to aluminum (which
is an excellent conductor of heat), steel (a decent conductor), or other
common materials, make sure you've got a good flood coolant setup and are
using it well.
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gravity makes it easier. Kinda makes you wonder why nobody has a machine
that cuts from underneath. You'd need a pretty crazy palette loader so you
could drop the workpiece onto the table and then flip it for cutting. Too far out,
I thought, but then I discovered such machines actually exist. They're called
"Inverted Spindle Lathes" and are a potent alternative to bar fed lathes.
Here is a link to an MMSOnline article about them.
Conclusion
For many high performance applications, machinists can focus on chip
clearance and lubrication and ignore the cooling issues. Above a certain
surface speed, many tooling manufacturers recommend turning off the flood
coolant and using an air blast (perhaps with mist for lubrication) to clear chips.
Materials that don't transfer heat well like titanium will require flood coolant
regardless.
Additional Information
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Heat is the enemy of your cutting tools. The history of cutting tool
improvements has largely been about making tools that can stay sharp when
it gets hot, hot, hot in the kitchen. Coatings like TiAlN even thrive on a certain
amount of heat and have to be run to achieve their threshold temperatures
before the full value of the coating can be activated.
The problem with heat is that it softens your tool's cutting edges. Not long
after such softening, that tool will be done and will need to be replaced. What
techniques and options are available to machinists to turn down the heat on
their cuts?
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For most professionals, it typically makes more sense to keep the Material
Removal Rates as high as possible, but there are times where tool life is more
important. For example, you wouldn't want to lose a tool in the middle of a
long 3D profiling operation on an expensive part.
Increase Feedrate?
I list increasing feedrate with a question mark just because a lot of people will
see it that way. Increasing the feedrate has got to be harder on the tool, right?
There are two cases where it is actually easier on the tool, and both occur
when you're too far below the sweet spot threshold on the tool's chipload. The
absolute worst case for feedrate is when you're feeding so slowly that it
causes the tool to rub or burnish instead of shearing off a nice chip. This can
actually produce a pretty decent surface finish due to the burnishing effect
(like a "wiper" insert), but it is extremely hard on the tool. All that rubbing heats
it up in a hurry. This effect occurs when the chip thickness (chipload per tooth)
falls below the radius of the cutting edge on your tool.
I give more detail on this on the Chip Thinning page, but a picture is worth
1000 words:
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Cutter edge radius centerline travels along the yellow lines. If the radius is too
large relative to the depth of cut (bottom), all the force goes to pushing the
chip under the edge. This is the "rubbing" effect you'll hear talked about when
feedrate and hence chipload are too low. Use a calculator like G-Wizardthat
has radial chip thinning to avoid this problem.
The second case where faster feeds help is that larger chips carry away more
heat from the cut. Heat is generated on both sides of the shear line, but the
chip is also deforming and ultimately tearing off, so more of the heat goes to
the chip side. The trick is to bury that heat in as large a chip as possible and
fling it away before it can transfer the heat back into the workpiece.
To achieve optimal heat reducing effects through feedrate, use the
recommended feedrates. Going to higher feedrates can result in higher MRR,
which is an excellent goal, but it won't further reduce the heat buildup.
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the flood coolant off. Also, be aware that different coolants have different
levels of cooling efficacy, with water soluble being the best. See the Coolant
article for more.
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The dotted lines represent temperatures at various surface speeds. Note that
all of the materials go steadily up and then eventually start dipping back down
again as surface speed increases. Somehow, temperatures decrease beyond
a certain spindle rpm!
This chart is in meters/minute, so multiple the values by about 3 to get to
SFM. For aluminum, we have a pretty good dip by the time we're hitting 1000
SFM, for example. In fact, it's temperature is more equivalent to less than 300
SFM on the other side of the aluminum curve--that's nothing for aluminum.
Heck, if we have a fast enough spindle, there's even room to run HSS faster
and get lower temperatures (you'll note various cutter materials critical
temperatures are also marked off--stay below the line for your cutter!).
Steel and cast iron taper down more gently than aluminum, but the effect is
still alive and well. Yes Virginia, there surely is some strange behavior when
you start in with that HSM stuff!
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The same research showed that cutting forces also come down, and that's at
least one reason why the temperatures drop, and why for HSM machining in
the right rpm ranges, you can achive high MRR's with lower cutting forces.
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The arrows show where the cutting force is attempting to deflect the cutter.
Conventional cut at top, climb cut at bottom.
Note how the deflection force vector is more nearly parallel to the cut with
conventional milling (albeit the arrows are longer, showing there are higher
cutting forces). With climb milling, the arrow is nearly perpendicular to the cut.
If your cutter deflects 0.001", wouldn't you prefer it to be nearly in the direction
of travel? The alternative is for the cutter to plow deeper into the wall or pull
away from the wall. Either case will introduce more error in the part being
machined.
Try climb for roughing, because you can rough faster and the tool deflection
effects on accuracy don't matter--the finish pass will deliver the accuracy. You
can rough faster because cutting forces are lighter and the thick-to-thin chip
profile carries the heat away on the chip. That thick-to-thin + carrying the heat
away is particularly crucial for touch work-hardening materials like stainless. It
also results in a nicer surface finish if you can afford to climb for the finish
pass.
But, you should switch to conventional milling for the finish pass if you're at all
deflection challenged (use G-Wizard to see if your tool diameter and stickout
result in small enough deflection for your finish pass). At the very least, one
should avoid too much depth of cut when climb milling lest it invite deflection.
The same article suggests that when deflection is to be minimized, use no
more than 30% of the diameter of the cutter for conventional milling and 5%
for climb milling. Of course here again, if you have G-Wizard, you'll know what
kind of deflection to expect and whether it's a worry.
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Climbing to rough and conventional to finish is inline with the consensus over
at Practical Machinist as well.
Properly factoring deflection can help you avoid the need for an extra spring
cut, which saves time and money.
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Now imagine that deflected cutter as it spins. The deflection makes it act
almost like a hammer swinging against the bell. The flexing combined with the
flutes and the spindle rpm create a rhythmic pulsing, which is exactly what
excites chatter. If you do a little research, the major tooling companies will tell
you that a tool deflection of more than 0.001" starts to be enough that chatter
can set in.
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What if you don't have a calculator like G-Wizard? Are there any rules of
thumb for estimating or avoiding tool deflection?
Unfortunately, the math involved is really complex and not very intuitive. It
also involves a lot of variables. Tool deflection is affected by number of flutes.
It changes as the third power of length and the fourth power of diameter. Et
cetera, et cetera. Simple rules like, "Don't use a depth of cut greater than 2x
the cutter's diameter", just can't capture the complexities of the math.
If you don't have a deflection calculator, you're left with making the most rigid
possible tool holding and keeping an eye on the cut. If accuracy, surface
finish, chatter, or tool life become a problem, tool deflection is one thing to
consider looking into.
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G-Wizard's Cut Optimizer maximizes MRR while keeping tool deflection within
limits you've set...
Using Cut Optimizer, you can master the interplay between Cut Depth, Cut
Width, Tool Deflection, Feedrate, and Tool Stickout.
Deciding on Best Depth and Width of Cut Using the Cut Optimizer
I got a note recently from a G-Wizard user who wanted to know how to decide
on best depth and width of cut when milling. It's a great question. Most
machinists, use rules of thumb and habit more than anything else unless the
situation dictates something in particular based on the dimensions of the
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feature being machined. They're used to using some fraction of the cutter's
diameter or some figure that they got to some other way through habit (40
thousandths or some such is what they've always used). Perhaps their CAM
program has a hardwired default that is a percentage of the cutter's diameter.
But these values, while they have worked over time, are not necessarily
optimal figures with respect to material removal rates, tool deflection
allowances, or a host of other variables we might choose to consider. What's
a more systematic way to approach the problem?
First thing is we have two variables (width and depth of cut), so it's hard to
make progress unless we can nail one of the two variables down and focus on
the relationship of the other. It's usually pretty easy to nail down one of the
variables based on the situation. Let's divide our work into two categories:
- Slotting: I'll generalize this to be any situation where the material to be
removed is very close to the cutter's diameter. It may be a slot, or it may
involve interpolating a hole or pocket that's only a little bit larger than the
endmill's diameter.
- Pocketing: Here again, I will generalize this to be any situation where the
cutter's diameter is quite a bit smaller than the dimensions of the material to
be removed. That doesn't mean there isn't some inside radius or other feature
that isn't more like the slotting example, but for the most part, we have some
room to work in. Note that profiling will be considered to be the same as
pocketing for this discussion.
Okay, so now we have to take the task before us and decide whether it is
closer to slotting or pocketing. The reason I've defined these two the way I
have is that it informs our choice of which variable to work on first. If we are
slotting, the cutting width is the first variable. If we are pocketing, the cutting
depth is the first variable. Why?
When slotting, the feature is very close to the cutter's diameter in size. We
can't take a 1/2" endmill and use it to make a 1/4" slot. In general, we want to
use the largest diameter endmill that fits the feature, and then we pretty much
have to make at least one cut that is full width. Once we're cleared that cut,
anything remaining is handled the way we would under pocketing. So, when
slotting, we focus first on cut width and make that the cutter's width to get
started.
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When pocketing, our limitation will be the smallest inside radius we have to
deal with as well as the depth of the pocket. Remember, it may be
advantageous to make two passes. The first with a cutter that has a diameter
too large for the smallest inside radii we have to deal with. That's a roughing
pass that uses a larger cutter just to get done faster. The second pass is a
finishing pass, and must use a cutter whose diameter is less than or equal to
that required to reach into the smallest internal radius the pocket holds. Note
that we can go around an outside radius (a boss) with any diameter cutter, it is
the inside radius that limits us.
So, we pick a cutter that is either as big as the smallest radius, or we choose
to go two passes and go with a larger cutter. Let's leave the two pass issue
aside for the moment, because figuring out when that is optimal can take a bit
of trial and error. Its similar to think of one pass. Given that the cutter is
chosen, we can choose just about any width of cut we want. So how do we
nail down a variable when pocketing? On the slotting case, I like to nail down
cut width. On the pocketing case, I prefer to nail down cut depth.
In general, we get a nicer finish if we cut the pocket in as few layers as
possible. CAM programs are good at layering down into the pocket, so we can
pick arbitrary depths of cut. If I can, I like to do it in one layer for a pocket that
isn't two deep. If not, I prefer the depths of the layers to be equal. In other
words, I wouldn't go down 1/4", 1/4", and then 0.19" on the third layer. So pick
a layer depth that satisfies that criterion.
Now, in both cases we have locked one of the two variables--slotting locks
width, pocketing locks depth. We need to determine the best value for the
variable we left floating based on the value of the one we locked. This is
where the G-Wizard Cut Optimizer makes it easy. Enter the values you know
for the cut and let the Optimizer figure the value for the floating variable.
For example, let's suppose we need to cut a pocket that is 3/4" deep in 6061
aluminum. The smallest internal radius is 1/4", so we've decided to use a 1/4"
3 flute carbide endmill. Here is the problem set up in G-Wizard:
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Material, Tool, Tool Diameter, Flutes, and 3/4" Cut Depth Entered...
Now we can invoke the Cut Optimizer just by pressing the "Rough" button:
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As you can see from the red arrows I added, for a 3/4" depth of cut, this
endmill can handle no more than 0.1799" width of cut when roughing. Let's
round that down and go with 0.170"
Press the finish button to see what sort of finish allowance we should have the
CAM leave for our finish path and we get 0.0052". That's a pretty light pass,
but 3/4" is deep for this 1/4" endmill. Here's an interesting thought: if we
reduce tool holder to tip length to 0.9" instead of 1", we can increase that cut
to 0.0095". That gives you an idea of how important it is to keep the tool stick
out as little as possible. I'd be inclined to go with choking up on the tool and a
finish width of cut of 0.009" were this my job. The other thing to consider is
two levels of finish pass. If we don't mind taking two levels and still choke up
on the tool, we can get 0.015" width of cut for the finish. That's about as much
as I like to take on a finish pass.
The problem with this cut is its a little bit deep for our 1/4" endmill. That's a 3:1
ratio of diameter to depth. We can tell its straining because the max
recommended widths of cut are so light. If I had a CAM program that made it
easy to make the roughing pass with a bigger cutter, I would be tempted to
jump in with a 1/2" endmill (or maybe even larger) for the roughing pass and
then go to the 1/4" for finishing, but you get the idea.
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The slotting case is pretty similar, except for that case, instead of trying to
compute the width of cut, we want to use the optimizer to figure out the depth.
For example, if we continue with our 1/4" 3 flute, let's say we need to cut a slot
0.300" wide to a depth of 3/4". Our plan is to cut a full slot 0.250" wide down
the middle, and then finish it up by cutting the remainder on each side. How
deep can we make our full slot passes? Once again, dial up the initial
parameters, and this time, hit the "Slot" button. For roughing, the Cut
Optimizer tells us we can cut to a depth of 0.3466" before we get too much
deflection. Two passes at that depth will get us to 0.6932" deep. That leaves
0.0568" on the bottom for us to finish and 0.0259" on either side for the finish
pass. Remember, we're not cutting a full slot for the finish pass, so we treat it
just like we did our pocket to figure out the width and depth of cut.
That's all there is to it. To summarize:
1. Decide whether you are slotting or pocketing.
2. When slotting, pick a value for width, and use Cut Optimizer to decide
depth.
3. When pocketing, pick a value for depth, and use Cut Optimizer to decide
the width.
If you approach the problem this way, you'll maximize your MRR's while
minimizing your tool deflection as appropriate for either roughing or finishing.
That's a much more optimal approach than the old wet finger in the wind!
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only did we change the stickout, but we went to a more rigid collet chuck while
we were at it and fired up the job. We couldn't see much through all the
coolant, but we distinctly heard the tool break near the end of the job. Darn!
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The immediate cause of the failure is the thin wall I've pointed to in the photo
with the red arrow. That wall turned a partial stepover cut into a full slot which
reduced chip clearance and likely shrouded the cutter from getting enough
coolant. The cutter didn't get very far along the wall before built up edge
caused the aluminum to start welding onto the cutter. You can see the typical
debris from that all along the left side--it looks like mud, but it's aluminum.
Most machinists have had this happen before and they know it doesn't go on
very long before a tool breaks.
The key question: Why was that little wall there? At first I blamed Volumill
because the thickness of the wall seemed on par with some of the other little
dips and divots of the toolpath. However, that blame turned out to be
misplaced. After I got home with the g-code, I plugged the parameters into GWizard and determined that the toolpath had been severely deflecting. The
cutter was climb milling, so as we mention above, the deflection would tend to
be perpendicular to the direction of cut. In this case, the cutter deflected
deeper into the cut and left the wall. If it had deflected away, we never would
have seen a problem.
In retrospect, a lot less stepover probably would've improved the performance
and finish of the HSM path as well as eliminating the deflection that eventually
took out the cutter.
It pays to be aware of and control your tool deflection!
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Toolpath Considerations
CNC Milling Feeds and Speeds Cookbook
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a force to the end of the tool. You can either apply it by tapping the end of the
tool with a hammer using a tap that applies the exact amount of force, or you
can steadily press against the tool with that force, perhaps having ramped it
up smoothly. Which method do you think will allow you to apply the most
force? It's not the hammer!
Let's go through some of the most critical toolpath goings on while milling and
see what measures can be taking to keep it smooth and easy. Using these
measures will reduce tool wear, improve surface finish, and ultimately allow
you to run the cutter faster, further, or both.
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Not the chip shape to the right of the feed line (the red line is the path the
cutter follows): thin chips on exit are better!
To execute an entry like this means starting the cutter out one radius to the
right of the original starting location and then rolling it in along a path that is an
arc with the same radius as the cutter. The folks on PM report that this works
as well for endmills as it does for the face mills Sandvik shows in their video.
In fact, they say it really helps improve cutter life on materials like Stainless
Steel.
Stay in the Workpiece and Avoid Straddling Slots
Try to keep the cutter engaged as much as possible. Every time it leaves the
workpiece it has to do another entry, which is an interrupted cut of the worst
kind. Your cutter and your workpiece will be happier if you can keep them
engaged.
You can really make a cutter's life miserable by travelling over slots, holes,
and other openings because you're forcing the cutter to enter the workpiece
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over and over again each revolution. Try to arrange your toolpath so that
instead of straddling a slot, it cuts a pass on either side of the slot.
Anytime you must machine over interruptions, you can improve the situation
by reducing the feedrate up to 50% depending on the toughness of the
material.
Plunge, Ramp, or Helix (Circular Ramping)?
When preparing to pocket, you have a choice of plunging, ramping, or helixing
to get the cutter into the material. Of course you could also use an insertable
drill to quickly open a cavity to start from, but you'll have to way the cost of the
tool change to see whether it's worth it. Not counting the tool change, a drill is
the fastest way to make a hole of all these methods.
In order of preference, the Helix is the easiest on the tooling, followed by
ramping, followed by plunging. Avoid the latter where possible.
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Every machinist has had the experience of hearing the machine "squeak" out
a little chatter as the tool goes around the corner. Most have broken tools in
corners when they pushed too hard. At some point, machinists learn to "ride"
the feedrate override. That is, they would dial back the feed by twisting the
FRO dial as the cutter came to a corner. Eventually, utilities and CAM
programs became available that would automatically slow down the feedrate
in corners to keep the cutting forces constant.
This is not a bad solution compared to the alternative of plowing into the
corner full speed. It will let you tune up your programs to run with higher feeds
and speeds. However, pretty soon better ways were developed. The
disadvantage of simply adjusting the feedrate is that machines are limited in
how fast they can accelerate and decelerate. Inevitably, this means g-code
has to slow the tool sooner and longer than is optimal.
Trochoidal Paths and "Peeling" Corners
What if instead of slowing down for corners you simply arranged the toolpath
so there weren't any corners? This is the secret of all modern HSM toolpaths.
The first approaches tried involved techniques called "Trochoidal Milling" and
"Corner Peeling."
Corner Peeling invovles taking a series of arc moves to slice down gradually
into the corner instead of plowing into it:
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That's a Trochoidal Toolpath, and you can run it a lot faster than you can run
the full width endmill.
Constant Engagement Angles
The problem with Peeling and Trochoids is they're special case "hacks" for
corners rather than general purpose ways of controlling tool engagement
angle. Eventually, CAM vendors solved the problem of how to generally
create toolpaths that keep constant tool engagement angles. The productivity
when roughing with such paths is huge. Here is a typical path created by
GibbsCAM's Volumill for a pocket:
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model we're getting the geometry for our toolpaths from. Drawings and
models consisting strictly of straight lines and sharp corners are relatively
easy to create accurately. But when dealing with curves, all sorts of issues
can crop up:
- Are we approximating the curves as a series of many line segments?
- Can we go beyond simple arcs to use more complex representations of the
curves?
- Can we represent curves using NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines)?
That's the order from lowest to highest quality representation of curve
geometry. Suffice it to say that the further down the list your CAD operates,
the better potential it has for delivering smooth accurate geometry.
Next, we need to consider what the CAM program is prepared to consume.
For example, can it take in your CAD program's native files or did you have to
convert to some other format? Consider STL, for example. STL is a common
3D format that represents 3D objects with thousands of small triangular
facets. Clearly there is the potential for such an approximation to diverge from
the smooth flowing curves you had in mind when you created the model. It's
always best if your CAM program can import the native geometry format of
your CAD. BTW, just because it happens to be integrated with the CAD
program doesn't necessarily mean that's the case, although there is a high
likelihood it is. You also have to consider whether the internal representation
of the geometry used by the CAM program reverts to something less
sophisticated than your CAD produces. The latter is something you're unlikely
to ever find out for sure, but you can suspect it if you notice the CAM program
acting like it ignores or approximates some of the geometry.
The last step is your CNC Controller. Basic g-code has line segments (G00
and G01 moves) and arcs (G02 and G03). That's it. It's only the higher end
controllers that can directly operate on NURBS. So even after you've gone to
great trouble to avoid losing fidelity throughout the CAD to CAM chain, your
CAM program must still break things down to something your machine's
controller can deal with.
Complex "curvy" toolpaths for tasks like 3D profiling can wind up with lots of
operations as the curves are simulated as many very small line segments
(and possibly arcs). In fact, the volume of data can overwhelm the controller,
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whether because it can't store it all and requires drip feeding, or because it
can't process the moves fast enough to maintain the commanded feedrates.
Your CAM program may also output changes of direction that are too frequent
and sudden for the acceleration capabilities of your machine.
There are a host of ways that information, accuracy, and surface finish can be
compromised on the road from drawing to finished part. How do you avoid
these problems?
First, you can fiddle with the settings of your CAD and CAM. Settings like
tolerance are pretty important for these situations.
Second, some CAM and other utility software has the ability to go back into
the g-code and tune it up to run better. This is done using a process called
"curve" or "arc" fitting. In essence, the idea is to convert a series of moves into
a single smooth arc, provided the arc is within a specified tolerance of the
original series of moves. Doing this can dramatically reduce the size of some
g-code programs as well as making them run much better on machines that
have trouble keeping up with all the little moves.
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Faceting shows the g-code used lines where arcs might have been better...
The photo is from a CNCZone thread. The machinist had recently switched
from using the DXF format for CAD to STL files. That's when the faceting
began. The trouble is the STL file format has no way to represent a smooth
curve or even arcs. It converts everything into triangles:
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As we've seen, a lot of changes can be made that result in smoother cutting.
You want the smoothest toolpaths possible. You want fewer operations, for
example, don't use lots of line segments where a single smooth arc will fit the
tolerances required. Some of this is just good cutter dynamics, and some of it
is trying to overcome the controller's shortcomings.
Older controllers can't necessarily process as many blocks per second as is
needed to follow all those little line segments. Let's say you're approximating
an arc with a series of short segments. The arc has a radius of 1/2" and your
tolerance on the job is 0.001". Using G-Wizard's Chord calculator, we can see
that each segment is about 0.001" long and covers an angle of 0.1146. Let's
say we need to do 1/4 of a circle for a corner, which is 90 degrees, or 785 of
these little segments.
Now let's assume we're cutting aluminum with a 3 flute 1/4" cutter at 40 IPM.
Those little segments are supposed to be cut in 0.01 seconds. Put another
way, your controller has to execute 78,000 blocks/second to keep up. Typical
modern controllers can run 2000 - 4000 blocks per second. What happens is
your cutting slows way down in the corner because the controller can't
command the servos fast enough to keep up with the program.
This has been a somewhat extreme example, but programs call on their
controllers to go faster than they're able more often than you'd think,
especially if you're running an older controller.
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Wait!
Theres much more to the CNCCookbook Feeds and Speeds Cookbook on our
web site here:
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCMillFeedsSpeeds.htm
Come check it out!
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